3 Ideas to Steal from the Spring Design Shows

5/5/2011 12:00:00 AM

by Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Editor at Large

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‘Tis the season when designers congregate in places like Milan and Vegas to show off their new work and gather ideas. I can’t afford one single thing at the shows, but they’re great for mining DIY ideas. Based on Design Milk's excellent coverage, I found three cool ideas that are ripe for adaptation—the most useful form of flattery—if you’re handy with such things.

Architect David Bitton covered last month’s iSaloni, the Milan Furniture Fair for Design Milk and found “a clear shift in priorities” toward better production values. “After many years of paying token interest to ecological and sustainable issues, it seemed to me that this year designs really did integrate ecology at the heart of the creative as well as the manufacturing processes,” he writes. Natural materials have returned in a big way, he says, and the divide between “man-made furniture” and its surrounding is blurring. Angelo Grassi Design’sCollezione Vegetale chair is one such example, and anyone who’s handy with tools could make their own version.

Angelo Grassi Design's Collezion Vegatale chair, with vines growing up trellises from planters that are also chair legs, provides inspiration if you have the skills to build your own furniture. Is this cute or what? Photo courtesy of Design Milk

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